A graduate of the University of Milan in 1936, Sereni was active in Milan’s avant-garde literary circles and published his first poems in 1937 in the periodical Il frontespizio. He served as an infantry officer in the Italian army during World War II, was captured by the Allies, and was held in a prisoner-of-war camp from 1943 to 1945. He wrote of these wartime experiences in Diario d’Algeria (1947; Algerian Diary). After the war he returned to Milan and, briefly, to his teaching career. He worked as literary editor at the Mondadori publishing house, editor of the newspaperLa rassegna d’Italia, and literary critic for Milano-sera.

In the 1930s Sereni’s poetry placed him among the Hermetic school. Influenced by the poets Guido Gozzano and Eugenio Montale, his work evolved, particularly after World War II, from a private, interior orientation to a more concrete exploration of life. Sereni’s early work is influenced by Crepuscolarismo; an important theme is the concept of death as total and final and the verge of nothingness. His later work deals with the themes of alienation, involvement, loss, and the poet’s use of the past in his work. His poetry collections include Frontiera (1941; “The Border”); Gli strumenti umani (1965; “The Human Instruments”), and Stella variabile (1981; “Variable Star”).

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:

Add links to related Britannica articles!
You can double-click any word or highlight a word or phrase in the text below and then select an article from the search box.
Or, simply highlight a word or phrase in the article, then enter the article name or term you'd like to link to in the search box below, and select from the list of results.

Note: we do not allow links to external resources in editor.
Please click the Web sites link for this article to add citations for
external Web sites.